


Taste

by rustypeopleskillz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Happy Ending, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Warning: Kate Argent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 13:15:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rustypeopleskillz/pseuds/rustypeopleskillz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are many ways in which Derek wants to taste Stiles. His blood soaking Derek's tongue isn't one of them. </p><p>or</p><p>The one where a witch uses a magicked Derek to get back at Stiles. More specifically, she uses his teeth. The only thing stronger that Derek's angst is Stiles's exasperation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taste

**Author's Note:**

> The Kate Argent references aren't very explicit, but I thought I'd tag it anyway. 
> 
> This? This has been sitting on my laptop for weeks, just mocking me and my fear of posting. I don't know, after a few years in the SPN fadom you'd think I'd be over this, right? Nope. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoy!

There are many ways in which Derek wants to taste Stiles. He wants the morning after taste of sleepy kisses, with Stiles human and hung over and hungry. He wants the sweat salt slick of his tongue over Stiles's back after a fight gone right, the pulse of victory in their blood. He wants coffee tasting greetings as they both get ready for their days, hands familiar and fond on each other before they break apart for bagels or toast. He wants the buzz of booze in the back of his throat simply because Stiles has been drinking. He wants the scrape of ink and paper and sugar from Stiles's fingers and the crackle of soap and shampoo from behind his ears. He wants to know if the taste of Stiles changes with his diet, wants to feed him nothing but fruit and find out if it makes him sweet. 

He doesn't want this. He doesn't want the treacle-thick taste of Stiles's blood coating his tongue, blazing in, burning like it will never come out. Like all he will ever be able to taste again is Stiles's life as it pours out of him, pump after pump of precious blood uselessly leaving Stiles's body. 

It doesn't matter that he hadn't wanted to bite him, hurt him. It doesn't matter that he had fought with everything he had, with every sliver of anger and determination and guilt he could summon until his head was a vortex of desperation and despair, because it still hadn't saved Stiles. Hadn't stopped Derek's teeth, sharp slices of death against human skin too easily broken. It makes it worse that the spell had prevented Derek's bite from turning Stiles, had made him nothing but a tool for Stiles's destruction, teeth and claws but no alpha powers. Derek would rather have Stiles alive and pissed about being a werewolf than... than this. 

Derek can't hear anything except Stiles. The thudding of heart against rib cage, fast and scared and fragile, the wheezing gasps of air and pain, the rustle of fabric as Stiles moves. Tries to sit up. Fails. The groan he lets out is pain and frustration and somehow even sarcasm, but it sounds too wet, too gurgling. If Derek could move, he would get Stiles to a hospital. He needs to get Stiles to a hospital. The thought opens the blinds, lets other impressions, other sounds, seep into Derek's mind. The sound of battle, of screaming and tearing, of triumph, and he whips his head around, watches the witch fall under the assault of his wolves, feels the moment the last of her magic leaves him. She's dead. 

He doesn't hesitate another second. Stiles is in his arms, head lolling against his shoulder, blood soaking through Derek's shirt and adding a tang of iron to the fear-desperation-hate stink he can smell on himself. 

“Dude,” Stiles says, and it's supposed to be a protest, but it comes out more of a gasp. 

“Hospital,” Derek replies, and his voice is ripped through, thrashed beyond repair. He can't talk, not with Stiles's blood in his mouth, in his throat. He wants to throw up, wants to claw his tongue out. 

“Yeah, OK,” Stiles sighs, hand reaching out, grabbing hold of Derek's t-shirt and not letting go. 

¤¤¤

Derek doesn't leave. He wants to. He wants to run and rage and never come back, wants to find the witch's body and tear it apart, wants to gather his pack and bury his raw nerves under their scent. That last one is the only one he _needs_ , though, and he doesn't have to gather anyone, because they come to him. Sooty and sullen and scared, gashes still healing on their faces, clothes reeking of blood and guts and smoke, but alive. He knew that, knew they were all relatively unharmed, but the need to check for himself, to make sure he hasn't done any more damage, is too strong. His hands come away black when he touches them, but he doesn't care. Scott is the only one who pushes him away, would have growled if they were real wolves, but Derek has to make sure he's OK for Stiles's sake, because that's what Stiles would want. 

They huddle around a table in the waiting room's adjacent cafeteria, fumbling fingers clutched around styrofoam and heads bent, exhaustion and apprehension like a paralyzing fog around them. The Sheriff bursts in ten minutes after the pack, takes one look at them all, and raises a hand like he wants to hit someone, anyone. Derek is halfway out of his seat, ready for the pain, welcoming it even, when the hand falls back to his side. 

“Should have known,” the Sheriff says vaguely, eyes zeroing in on Derek. On Derek's face, cleaner now but still bearing traces of Stiles, on Derek's once-grey t-shirt, on the blood there. Derek can still taste it under the coffee he's forced down, mingling with the caffeine and making his fingertips itch with the prick of claws. He wonders if phantom taste is something he would have to worry about without a tongue. The Sheriff meets his eyes. 

“Tell me,” he says. Two words packed with over a year of lies and injuries and hidden bruises, with threatened arrests and screaming father-son fights that had left Stiles empty-eyed and silent on Derek's couch, questions about sacrifice and protection heavy on his shoulders. Derek had told him, more than once, that the secret should always be kept, that enough people knew and one more could be the straw that breaks their backs. The taste of bubble gum lip gloss and cruel laughter mixes with the blood, but this time Derek doesn't let Kate win. He pulls up an extra chair. 

“Scott,” he says, once the Sheriff is seated, and Scott nods. Tales of monsters and angry, selfish old men fill the hour of apprehensive waiting, Stiles's life in the balance. 

¤¤¤

The smell of anti-septic is so strong it coats the inside of Derek's mouth, brings with it memories of that one time his little sister had broken her leg climbing a tree. His human sister. He hadn't left her side for days, lessons about fragility and slow healing tattooed into his brain. Gracie's smile shadows him into the room, full of life and mischief and better days. 

He's the last one in, the last one to slip past the nurse's sharp glare and grated order of “two people at a time, no more”. He's watched the others leave with relieved smiles, with tired slumps, with lighter steps, but it isn't until he sees Stiles on the bed, alive and breathing and looking at him with exhaustion in his eyes, that it finally begins to sink in. Stiles is alive. 

Derek doesn't know how he manages to reach the chair. His legs have somehow become unattached, cut loose, his feet only barely obeying his command to move. Stiles follows him with his eyes, magnets that draw Derek in, won't let him look away to ease the shame souring on his tongue. There are bandages covering Stiles's neck, squares of white dividing his skin into barely there patches of fragile paleness and moles. They burn into Derek's retinas, remain when he blinks his eyes closed for a second, makes his teeth remember the feel of skin splitting apart under them. This was not how it was supposed to go. 

“Oh my god, stop it!” Stiles bursts out, voice croaky but strong, hand coming up to cover the whiteness. 

“What?” Derek asks, startled at the sudden sound. 

“That thing you're doing, with the staring and the guilt! It was the witch, OK? I knew that the whole time, the pack knew that, hell, even my dad apparently knows that now. So stop thinking it's somehow your fault just because she used your teeth to get back at me!”

There is a red flush creeping down over Stiles's face, an indignant march of blood as if to emphasize his point, and that more than anything drives it home for Derek. Stiles is really alive. The taste of his blood may still linger in Derek's mouth, but he didn't manage to drain all of it, didn't manage to destroy the one thing he... Stiles is alive. 

“I'm sorry,” Derek says, voice like stone, impenetrable and hard. The way it only ever gets when he cares. 

Stiles makes an exasperated noise. 

“Did you not hear me? Did you lose your little wolf ears while the witch was scrambling your brain? Not. Your. Fault.” He stabs a finger in Derek's direction with every word. “I would love to help you work on your giant guilt issues, but I lost like half my blood supply today and I need to sleep. It'll have to wait.”

Derek nods, actually having to fight down a smile. He feelings slightly hysteric, and his hands won't let go of the chair. He can still taste blood. 

“Oh my god,” Stiles repeats, and before Derek knows it, before he can do more than unclench his hands, Stiles has grabbed his arm and pulled him half on top of the bed. Derek lets out a surprised growl. “Shut up,” Stiles huffs, and then his lips are against Derek's, soft and warm and a little aggressive, like he's lost patience with Derek. 

Derek... well, he freezes. Furious battles between fight and flight instincts, between _yes_ and _panic_ , between _don't touch me_ and _Stiles Stiles Stiles_ take place within a second, petering out into still calm when Stiles's hand covers his cheek and his lips pull away, slowly, like he doesn't really want to stop. 

“Sorry,” Stiles says, his eyes closed, his face inches from Derek's. He licks his lips, like he's... like he's chasing the taste of Derek. The motorway between Derek's brain and his nerve endings zing with traffic, fast and delicious. “That wasn't how I planned that at all.”

Derek has to clear his throat before he can speak. He still hasn't moved. 

“You planned this?” 

Stiles finally opens his eyes. This close, Derek can see every single nuance of brown in his iris. 

“Duh,” he says, small smile gracing his lips. “I know you're dense, but I thought the crush thing was kind of obvious. Even Jackson noticed, and he never pays attention to anyone but himself.” 

“And Lydia,” Derek adds, because he has to argue with Stiles. It's what they do. Stiles's small smile turns blinding. 

“And Lydia,” he agrees. His breath smells a bit stale, a bit like the cheetos he had for lunch, and it's fanning against Derek's face. Because Derek still hasn't moved. “But yeah, obvious crush here, hello. And I know that you... that it would take some time, and I was willing to wait, I was, but then you had that look on your face, and dude, guilt? Not a good look on anyone. So, yeah, kissing. Was a thing. Sorry.” 

He looks sorry, too, like he knows that the last person Derek kissed burned his life down around him and left him with a permanent taste of ash and bubble gum lip gloss in his mouth. He still hasn't moved his hand, though, and Derek finds he doesn't mind that, doesn't mind the hot, dry intimacy of fingerprints against his temple. Instead of answering, of saying something like it's alright when it's not, not really, he leans into the touch, watches Stiles's face as it softens, as his eyes light up. 

“Yeah. OK,” he whispers. There's space next to Stiles in the bed, and Derek makes it his, rests a hand over Stiles's on his face, lets the sounds and smells of Stiles wash over him. “Could we try that again, though?” 

The angle is a bit strange, Stiles's lips more hesitant this time, but there are no battles, no fights against panic or instinct, only them. They keep it short, Stiles exhausted and Derek not much better, but the sweetness stays with Derek. Not long after Stiles's breathing has evened out, Derek drifts off, the taste of Stiles, and only Stiles, on his tongue.


End file.
